The Definition of Chutzpah

The Muslim American Society Freedom Foundation's Mahdi Bray has weighed in on the Imam fiasco with this quote:

"The detention of these religious leaders, and the refusal of the airline to allow them travel, is a gross example of blatant Islamophobia and the violation of the civil rights of Muslim passengers", said Imam Mahdi Bray, executive director of the Muslim American Society Freedom Foundation.
"These religious men had already gone through the airport security screening, like all other passengers on the aircraft. The fact that some of them chose to openly pray did not warrant, by any means, their removal from the plane. We call on all decent Americans to speak out against this bigotry and attacks on religious freedoms."
"Last time I checked, public prayer was still protected by the U.S. constitution, which guarantees freedom of religion and speech. It's a shame that as an African-American and a Muslim I have the double whammy, I have to worry about driving while black and flying while Muslim. We charge the airline with not only discrimination, but with an action that is insulting and demeaning to these Muslim religious leaders, and to all people of faith."

Imam Bray has some nerve talking about bigotry and religious freedom considering some of his past actions, like this:

In American Jihad, Emerson notes that when Abdurahman Alamoudi of the American Muslim Council, who is now serving a 23-year prison sentence for a terrorism financing conviction, encouraged the Muslim crowd at an October 2000 rally cosponsored by MPAC to declare their support of the jihad terror groups Hamas and Hizballah, "MPAC’s Political Advisor, Mahdi Bray, stood directly behind Alamoudi and was seen jubilantly exclaiming his support for these two deadly terrorist organizations." This was just three weeks after Bray "coordinated and led a rally where approximately 2,000 people congregated in front of the Israeli Embassy in Washington, D.C." Emerson reports that "at one point during the rally, Mahdi Bray played the tambourine as one of the speakers sang, while the crowd repeated: ‘Al-Aqsa [Mosque] is calling us, let’s all go into jihad, and throw stones at the face of the Jews [sic].'"

It strikes me as extremely hypocritical that Mahdi Bray would call concerned airlines passengers bigots after praising Hamas and Hizbollah at a 2000 rally. The last I looked, Hamas and Hizbollah were committed to the genocide of an entire religious group, which strikes me as the vilest form of bigotry.

Yesterday, I pointed out that there's more to this episode than Mahdi Bray and CAIR are talking about:

Pat Hogan, spokesman for the Metropolitan Airports Commission, said that witnesses to Monday's events told police that before the flight that besides praying, the imams were spouting anti-American rhetoric, talking about the war in Iraq and Saddam Hussein. One of the imams was heard saying that he would do whatever is necessary to fulfill his commitment to the Qur'an, witnesses told police, Hogan said. Other witnesses said some of the imams were repeating "Allah, Allah," he said. And a couple of the imams asked for seat-belt extensions, even though it did not appear they needed them, Hogan said. All of this made passengers, the attendants and the pilot uncomfortable, Hogan said. As a result, the pilot called police to have the imams escorted from plane.

I didn't know that spewing "anti-American rhetoric" was part of a Muslim's daily prayers. Let's remember that CAIR and Imam Shahin said the imams were simply praying at the airport. That's obviously not the case if you believe what witnesses told police. Don't you find it difficult to believe that there's that many 'Islamophobes' at an airport who would willingly lie to police? It's understatement to say that their actions were suspicious in a post-9/11 world.

It's worth telling you about Abdurrahman Alamoudi because he's hardly an innocent. Steve Emerson said that Mr. Alamoudi is serving a 25 year prison sentence, which is accurate. That's only part of what's known about Mr. Alamoudi:

ABDURAHMAN ALAMOUDI

• Founder and executive director of the American Muslim Council
• Islamic affairs advisor for the Clinton administration
• "We are all supporters of Hamas...I am also a supporter of Hezbollah."
• Arrested in 2003 for terrorist fundraising

He was the executive assistant to the president of the SAAR Foundation:

SAAR is the acronym for Sulaiman Abdul Aziz Rajhi, the Saudi sheik who set up the SAAR Foundation in the 1970s ostensibly to allow scholars and scientists from the Middle East and Asia to create charitable programs that would supply food, education, and technology to Islamic countries. The U.S. branch of SAAR was dissolved in December 2000 after raising $1.7 billion in the United States. SAAR was part of the SAFA Trust Group, a group of shell companies headquartered at 555 Grove Street in Herndon, Virginia, where the FBI and the U.S. Customs agency believe SAAR was set up to raise funds and launder money for international terrorist groups like Hamas, Hezbollah, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and al Qaeda.

Sulaiman Abdul Aziz Rajhi was "said to be close to the Saudi ruling family and is on the Golden Chain, a list of early al-Qaeda supporters" according to this article at Cooperative Research.net. In other words, there's anti-semitic bigotry running throughout the entire 'network', which makes the imams' claims of being the targets of bigotry laughable to any thoughtful person.

Cross-posted at LetFreedomRingBlog